AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
extensively patched, that it would have puzzled the ma- 
ker to tell the original colour. 
His face, though it bore the marks of the storms of many 
years, and was deeply furrowed, yet was good-humoured 
and honest. He had but one eye,—but there was a wag- 
gery about it, that insensibly caused a smile. His hair had 
originally been brown, but time had both grizzled and 
thinned it,—and as a few straggling locks peeped out from 
under his outlandish head gear, he looked, for all the 
world, like some rugged philosopher, who felt convinced 
of the truth of his own theories, and. never troubled him- 
self about other people’s. 
He was accompanied by a ragged urchin; who carried a 
basket, containing four or five wild pigeons, which he 
called flyers. 
The old man had with him three or four birch trees, 
about ten feet long, which had just been cut. I soon fell 
into conversation with him, and learned he was what is 
called a Pigeon-shooter, and had subsisted entirely by this 
employment for nearly forty-five years. 
As the Pigeon season was now coming.on, he was pre- 
paring his apparatus, which was as follows:—He selected, 
in the first place, a very high spot of ground, perfectly 
elear from wood or under-brush; upon this he built a hut 
of branches, large enough to contain one or two persons, 
with a very small entrance, through which you were 
obliged to creep upon your hands and knees. Opposite the 
hut, and at the distance of about four feet, was a pole, six 
inches in diameter, and about twenty feet long, inclined a 
little upwards. A little to the rear of the hut, and on each 
side, were erected four or five poles, twelve feet high— 
the summits of these were crowned by the flutterers, 
(wild Pigeons, ) caught in a trap, with their eyes sewed up, 
and which were prevented from escaping, by a string of 
about five feet long. The tops of the poles also commu- 
nicated with the hut by means of strings. Here the old 
man would take his stand, with his pipe and grandson, and 
provisions for the day, before sun-rise—keeping a sharp 
look-out all round the horizon for the pigeons, which, 
about the latter end of August, make their appearance in 
great numbers. The moment his lynx eye had detected 
a flock, and long before my inexperienced vision had seen a 
speck in the cloudless sky, he instantly pulled the strings— 
up went the flutterers—cock went his gun—(an old king’s 
arm, ) loaded to the muzzle with powder and shot,—and the 
old fellow fell to prating, i. e. imitating the ery of a wild 
Pigeon, which experience had taught him to do to perfec- 
tion: in a few moments, the whole flock, which, perhaps, 
being headed the other way, would instantly wheel round, 
attracted by the old man’s prating, and the fluttering of 
the decoys—and, in a vast swoop, would settle upon the 
M mw 
137 
whole length of the pole, two or three deep. He would 
then fire the moment they alighted, and sweep the whole 
off. 
His little boy would rush out, and bag the whole, some- 
times amounting to twelve dozen, and lug them home 
—the old fellow, then, without moving from his lair, 
would load again, and prepare for another flock, which 
sometimes would not appear for hours, and perhaps not 
again the whole day. 
His perseverance was indomitable,—for he would sit 
from sun-rise to sun-set, through the hottest days, without 
stirring from his seat,—and puffing out large columns of 
smoke from his broken pipe; his quick and restless eye 
piercing around inevery direction. The least speck in the 
horizon—down would go the pipe—up go the flutterers— 
prate, prate, would echo through the forest, —again sound 
the gun—again the fluttering of the dying and wounded— 
and again all silent. At sun-set, he would go home, pick 
his Pigeons, which would sell for fifty cents a dozen, and 
the feathers for twelve and a half cents per pound. The 
Pigeon season lasted about six weeks, during which he 
averaged four dollars a day, which, together with the fea- 
thers, and the ducks which he would occasionally shoot on 
the lake, during the fall and winter, and the muskrats 
which his boy caught in traps, and whose skins sold pretty 
well, he told me he contrived to support himself through 
the year. He fought, he said, at the battle of Bunker- 
Hill, and was wounded there. ‘ But,” said he, with a 
sigh, ‘‘they forget what little good I have done—it is 
always the way with the world. I have no family to 
provide for, thank God, save my grandson, and he, when 
I die, shall have my blessing, my bible, and my gun—as 
long as there are Pigeons in the world, we shan’t starve.” 
ONE oF YoUR SUBSCRIBERS. 
Boston, August 23d, 1832. 
INTERESTING STORY OF A LOST CHILD. 
On Thursday last, Jenison Alkire took with him his 
sister Elizabeth, and proceeded about three miles from 
home, for the purpose of watching adeer lick. They staid 
all night at the lick, and Jenison killed a deer. In the 
morning, finding his horse had left him, he prevailed on 
Elizabeth to stay at the camp with the deer, until he should 
go home and return with the horse. Jenison went home, 
returned with a horse, but found that his sister had left the 
camp. He called her in vain; he endeavoured to find her 
trace through the weeds, but without success. He then has- 
